Wapping at 40

THE MARX Memorial Library is holding a symposium on the Wapping strike on 24 January 2026. It's subtitled ”the strike that made the modern media” and the strike arguably did that. It was triggered by Rupert Murdoch’s News International moving production overnight to a fortified compound in Wapping in east London, sacking more than 5500 print and clerical workers on 24 January 1986.

More than 100 “refusenik” journalists took a stand on principle and walked out of their jobs. Over the next year pickets attempted to turn back deliveries of newsprint, and papers leaving the compound. Following the collapse of the strike all other papers abandoned Fleet Street (except the Dundee Courier, which hung on until 2016).

The symposium is at 10am on 24 January 2026 at the Marx Memorial Library & Workers' School, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU, close to Farringdon station - see OpemStreetMap - and online. You need to register to attend.

© Mike Holderness

Wapping at 40 www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk